Customary International Humanitarian Law and the Nigerian Armed Forces: A Critical Assessment of Compliance

This doctoral research provides a critical and systematic assessment of the Nigerian Armed Forces' compliance with customary international humanitarian law (CIHL) in internal armed conflict operations, developing an original analytical compliance assessment methodology applicable to non-international armed conflicts in African states. The Nigerian military's operations against Boko Haram, ISWAP, and other armed groups constitute non-international armed conflicts governed by Common Article 3, Additional Protocol II, and CIHL as codified in the ICRC's 2005 Customary IHL Study. Despite the existence of formal IHL obligations, documented allegations of extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, collective punishment of civilian populations, and destruction of property by Nigerian forces create a significant compliance deficit requiring rigorous analytical treatment. The research employs a multi-source doctrinal methodology, systematically applying the ICRC's 161 CIHL rules to a corpus of evidence comprising UNSC reports, Amnesty International investigations, Human Rights Watch field reports, military court martial records obtained through FOIA, and survivor interviews gathered with ethical safeguards in Borno and Zamfara states. An original Nigerian Armed Forces IHL Compliance Index is developed, providing a structured, evidence-based assessment of rule-by-rule compliance. The dissertation makes a doctrinal contribution by applying the CIHL compliance assessment methodology to an African non-international armed conflict context, generating comparative insights for IHL scholarship on African militaries. Policy recommendations target the military's Judge Advocate General's Department and the National Human Rights Commission's monitoring role. Keywords: customary international humanitarian law, Nigerian Armed Forces, IHL compliance, non-international armed conflict, armed forces accountability.